document goals of the stakeholder program better

[nikomatsakis]

[Mark-Simulacrum]

I am wondering if it makes sense to emphasize the "enablement" aspect of this a little more. In particular, it feels like at the most basic level, the stakeholder program is not about gaining special access of any kind - instead, these participants are signing up to ensure we get some users who are volunteering to write up their experiences, experiment with usage, etc. These are things available to everyone - but this idea is intended to ensure we go in with a list of people to poke, rather than needing to shout into the void hoping someone can write up their experience, as we do today on tracking issues basically.

I think the current text works toward this fairly well, but maybe we can consider some small edits to further go in this direction. I think the key bit for me is that "stakeholders" sounds like a closed set - i.e., we don't care about your opinion if you're not in the group, since you're "not a a stakeholder". But of course this is wrong; you still are a stakeholder like any other user or possible user.

Perhaps something like "Early explorers" or "Testers"? I'm not very happy with either of those.

Ultimately, it doesn't seem like it's that bad to use stakeholders, but I think we can accomplish the messaging without as much work with a different name. :)

[eholk]

the key bit for me is that "stakeholders" sounds like a closed set

One of the things I thought when I read the part that says "we welcome design feedback from all Rust users, regardless of whether you are a named stakeholder or not" is that maybe we should phrase it as "all Rust users are stakeholders, but these are people who have committed to giving early feedback on features."

But I think you're on to something, @Mark-Simulacrum, if we are all stakeholders but some are more stakeholders than others, then maybe there's a better term. "Early explorers" isn't a bad place to start.

[nikomatsakis]

I agree that an alternate name might be better! Early Explorers is ok, but a bit complex. Beta testers? Consultants? Testers? Designed testers? I've heard the term "bravehearts" used, but it may be an AWS-ism. I think it'd be great to get something playful -- that's what I like best about Early Explorers, although it is making me think of

Not a bad thing =)

[nikomatsakis]

Maybe something with Ferris... The Ferris Ferrets, ferreting out bugs? ok, that's crossed over into inane. :)

[tmandry]

I have been using the term "stakeholder representative" ("representative" for short) when contacting folks.

[nikomatsakis]

This has been open a long time. The stakeholders program hasn't been a huge success, we've had a few meetings, and they were useful, but we've still driven the majority of our feedback through 1:1 conversations, blog posts, and the usual mechanisms. I'm inclined to merge this PR but if we ever do a retro I'd say we want to run this differently.